55. Kain
Chapter 55
Kain
I 'm home.
Her words filter through the agony.
I'm home.
Magic swirls. Stutr's voice bellows in glee.
He's almost free. The power contained in this old piece of metal is beyond comprehension. Inga was a gods-cursed fool.
"And you're not alone."
No.
My head is about to explode with the pain. My muscles are strained to breaking, and my skin is on fire.
"You'll never be alone again."
The words are enough to cause a beat of clarity in the terrifying chaos.
She's going to go with me. She's not going to drop me to my fiery death and get herself to safety.
She won't leave me alone.
Desperation courses through me, so powerful it forces my eyes open, and my body into spasms.
I hear myself roar, but it's useless.
She loves me. She's bound to me. I know, because I feel it too.
I know, because there is no way I would ever let her go to the afterlife alone.
But when she dies, it will be because of me.
I can't let that happen. I won't.
Whatever it takes, I must save her.
I try to force my brain to work through the pain, but it is so hard to focus. Stutr's glee is still pouring through me, and without my wings and my full Valkyrie magic, I know I can't contain him much longer. Skoll is doing most of the work inside me now, and all I see is flames.
Flames… and something else.
A flicker of familiar magic I haven't felt in centuries.
It calls to me from below, but Madivia's grip holds me too tight to see. I reach out with what's left of my senses, and with a start, I recognize it.
It's the Fire Court Palace.
The dark, earthy shell that buried my home all those years ago is not enough to stop the familiar magic of my old palace reaching me.
The place I grew up with my brothers and sister. My regal, strong father, and my gentle, fair mother. The family that all died the day the Frost Giants came and collapsed the very structure of the court itself, then sealed it over with earth to make it look like it had been done by fire and covered the truth.
I lock on to the magical signature of the palace beneath. Relying solely on instinct and faith, I send a prayer to the gods I have turned my back on. Who turned their backs on me.
Don't do it for me. Save her. Let this work, guide my magic, and save her.
I channel the roaring heat, the destructive, maniacal force of a lava god, straight into the palace below the earth.
Madivia cries out, and I hear the roaring of flames and the smash as lava hits the ground.
Skoll howls inside me, the pain unbearable, and I try to force more of the searing magic out of my body and into the beacon of the destroyed Fire Court palace.
I have to win this. For her, I have to win.
"Kain!"
Something is happening.
I know this feeling. I remember this feeling.
Wings .
Great wings made of flame burst out on either side of me, and Madivia is sailing backward through the air.
I see her properly for the first time. She has huge white wings shot with blue, beating hard on either side of her body. Her whole body is shining, made from solid ice, but her hair is burned and ragged, along with most of her clothes.
Her bright blue eyes are wide and streaming with tears.
"I love you."
The lava god's magic surges, his glee replaced by panic, and it hurts so much.
My head tips back, and then the lava is pouring from every part of my body, the pain excruciating.
I can hear Madivia screaming, and Stutr bellowing.
Then everything stops. There's a glorious beat of silence, where the pain and the noise is gone.
And then I'm falling.